Irish MSP Trilogy invests in 'steep growth' after UK VAR buyout

Dublin firm has big plans for UK business after acquiring virtualisation and services player b2Lateral

Irish managed services provider (MSP) Trilogy Technologies has aggressive plans to invest in and grow its UK operation following its acquisition of London-based channel player b2Lateral.

The Dublin-headquartered firm crossed the Irish Sea earlier this year with its buyout of the virtualisation, storage, software, and services outfit, which has since been rebranded under its new owner's banner. The enlarged Trilogy operation has a turnover in the region of €10m (£8.2m).

Arthur Griffin, chairman of Trilogy Technologies, told CRN that his firm will be investing about £1.5m in building its UK operation over the next two years. The services firm considers its customer sweet spot to be the 250- to 500-employee bracket, but addresses anything from 25 seats upwards.

"We would be looking for steep growth, to at least double the size [of the UK business]," added Griffin. "We would look at organic growth in the Greater London area, before maybe looking to Birmingham or, particularly, Liverpool and Manchester. Our key markets will be business services, such as legal, accounting and financial services, in the mid-sized area. In Ireland we are big in the public sector. That will come in time in the UK, particularly in non-central government."

All b2Lateral's staff have been kept on; 16 people are currently employed at Trilogy's UK HQ in Holborn, with plans to expand this to 20 in short order. Simon Golding, formerly b2Lateral managing director, remains in place at the head of the UK business. He explained that the change of ownership represented a change of direction for his firm.

"B2Lateral were a reactive support organisation; we have been transitioning to a managed services model, and we are ready to scale," he said. "We had been talking about managed services for quite a while, but had not quite managed to make the move. So it was fairly opportune that Arthur and I started talking last year.

"The reactive services will still be there; there are a couple of customers that cannot get their heads around managed services yet. But others are now transitioning onto a managed service. We are not in this to give it a half-hearted attempt."

The union of b2Lateral and Trilogy, together with plans to add 30 heads to its 50-strong Irish workforce, was announced alongside taioseach (Irish prime minister) Enda Kenny (pictured - on the right - with Golding and Trilogy group managing director Edel Creely).

Creely asserted that the expansion into the UK will allow the services player "to escalate growth dramatically". She claimed that the company - which partners with vendors including VMware, Microsoft, HP, IBM, and Cisco - can fulfil customers' product supply needs, but that the focus is very much on proactive monitoring and management.

"We will help customers develop a technology road map of what they need from their IT infrastructure, then manage it for them on an ongoing basis," she said. "It is about monitoring and preventing - we are not waiting for the red light to come on, we are anticipating when it will."